This is a blog by a Memphian who wants to share his unique perspective, along with some interesting facts & information, about cycling in & around the city of Memphis.

Follow by Email

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Wolf River Conservancy's Greenway trail will be a dream come true for Memphis and Shelby County

Wolf
River Conservancy’s Greenway trail will be a dream come true for Memphis and
Shelby County
By:Michael Lander

The greenline and greenway trails in and around Memphis
are extremely popular with cyclists and others. More
people are expected to ride, walk, and run on them,
especially after the Wolf River Greenway trail is
completed in 2019.

Good things, we are often told, come to those who wait.

For runners, walkers, and cyclists looking for a trail system, that is unlike
any other, that wait may not be very much longer.

Beginning this year, the Wolf River Conservancy will embark upon a three-year
project that will ultimately provide them with a greenway trail that will likely be a dream come true for many
of them.

For over 30 years, the conservancy
has been dedicated to protecting, preserving, and enhancing the Wolf River, and
its watershed, and with ensuring that it will be available for exploration,
recreation, and for the educational opportunities of this unique area now and
in the future.

Construction of the Wolf River Greenway trail from Humphrey’s Blvd westward to the
Mississippi River will begin this year and it is expected to be completed by
2019.

The trail was first conceived soon after the conservancy was first founded in 1985 by members of this fledgling non-profit
organization.

These members (or what some might call visionaries) immediately began the quest
to have one long, continuous trail and wildlife corridor that would essentially
follow along the Wolf River as it meandered its way around and through the
city of Memphis.

Decades later, this vision or dream for a greenway trail is finally on its way
to becoming a reality thanks to the conservancy, the City of Memphis, and the many others who have, in one way or
another, been actively involved in the process of making that dream a reality.

Chuck Flink (in a red striped shirt on the left) and Andy Hays (in the blue shirt
on the right) are with Alta Planning + Design and the two have met, talked
with, addressed concerns, and answered many questions at public meetings
with the first of these held in October 2015.

“The Wolf River Greenway project is the culmination of years of hard work by
many volunteers and professionals who share a vision for the corridor.We have had an overwhelmingly positive
response from just about every neighborhood that we have touched and I am
absolutely ecstatic to be a part of it,”Andy Hays
said.

Hays is an Alta Planning + Design Memphis Design Associate who has been active
in planning greenways, trail projects, and urban design projects for over 20
years like the Shelby Farms Greenline, the Harahan Bridge, extensions of the
Bluffwalk downtown, and now the Wolf River Greenway.

Since October 2015, the Wolf River Conservancy, along with the planning, engineering, and design firm that they hired 18 months ago, Alta
Planning + Design,
has been hosting public meetings and open house workshops concerning the
much-anticipated Wolf River Greenway trail.

The trail will run to and from the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis to Collierville, traversing
urban and natural areas along the way, where it will connect Memphis
area residents and their communities to one another, and it will intersect with
other local area trails like the ever-popular Shelby Farms Greenline.

Shelby Farms Park Conservancy Executive Director, Laura Adam, and the
Wolf River Conservancy Executive Director, Keith Cole, listen to the Alta
Planning + Design Senior Advisor, Chuck Flink, as he discusses a new
proposed route in the Lucius Burch State Park area on December 8,
2015 public meeting.

The Shelby Farms Park Conservancy Executive Director, Laura Adams briefly spoke about the cooperative
relationship between Shelby Farms Park and the Wolf River Conservancy and its executive
director, Keith Cole, spoke
about the history of his organization and its efforts for a greenway trail.Chuck Flink, who is the Senior Advisor for Alta Planning +
Design, and who has been involved with 725 greenway projects in 36 states and
half-a-dozen of them around the world, also spoke and he provided some recent
updates on the trail system, itself, and a new proposed route for the trail in
the 728-acrea Lucius E. Burch, Jr. State Natural Area
(LBSNA)
that is part of the 4,500 acres within Shelby Farms Park.

Originally, the Wolf River Greenway trail was planned to run alongside of Interstate 240, on the west side of the Wolf River.However, after members of Alta Planning + Design
went out to survey the site, they found that, because of its extremely close
proximity to the interstate, the area was a far less than ideal location for
the trail and that it would, therefore, not provide for a pleasant and
enjoyable experience for those walking, running, or riding a bike on it.

Cyclists will have a wide variety of scenery to look at
after the 36-mile Wolf River Greenway trail is
completed, which will connect many neighborhoods
and communities from downtown Memphis to
Collierville.

“The trail alignment on the west side of the Wolf River is very close to the
highly congested interstate that is undergoing expansion.The remaining buffer between the edge of the
road pavement, and possible location of the Wolf River Greenway, is so small
that future trail users would be negatively impacted by the noise and speed of
nearby traffic,” Hays said.

“To build the Greenway on the west side of the river will require extensive
structural solutions, of roughly the same cost as a route through the Lucius
Birch State Natural Area (LBSNA).We
prefer to route the trail through a portion of the LBSNA because it is a much
more enjoyable, trail-like experience – enjoyable for a wide range of trail
users.We respect that the LBSNA is
already in use by mountain bike riders and pedestrians and are hoping to find a
route and alignment for the Greenway that will be acceptable for all concerns,”
he added.

With that being the case, an alternative and potentially more desirable route
through the Lucius Burch area was drawn up by Alta Planning + Design
that would cross over the Wolf River and would follow along the eastern portion
of it instead.

Chuck Flink, of Alta Planning + Design, met with many who attended public
meetings on the Wolf River Greenway trail. Many of the maps and images
of what some areas currently look like, or will look like after the trail is
completed, were put on display.

Flink said that a bridge (going east and west) over the Wolf River would be
incorporated into this new proposed route and that it would cost about $700
thousand, but that it could run even more if a more elaborate design for the
bridge was desired.

Since the new route would affect existing mountain bike trails, Flink also said that there would be a need to
help resolve any potential conflicts by working with and getting input from
those who ride through that area.

Hays said that there have been alternative options that have been looked at,
like one that would have gone along the MLG&W
easement, but that the northern portion has a significant amount of wetland as
does the area that would tie in to the Shelby Farms Greenline.

The route through the Lucius Burch area, Flink said, would also connect the
Shelby Farms Greenline with the Wolf River Greenway, which has been a popular
concept with many that they have heard from in the general public at large.

Flink said that it is the goal of everyone involved in the greenway project
that the new trail would have a minimal impact on existing hiking and mountain
bike trails in the Lucius Burch area and that every effort would be made to
keep the current experience for users intact as much as possible.

The Wolf River Conservancy's CFO, Bob Wenner, (on the left), and Alta
Planning + Design's Chuck Flink, (on the right), answered questions at
one of about a dozen public meetings that have already taken place,
which offer area residents an opportunity to meet and talk with
members of the conservancy and with designers of the Wolf River
Greenway.

In order to make that happen, Flink would like his firm to work with and
communicate with those who have a vested interest in preserving what they have
at Lucius Burch.Representatives from
Alta Planning + Design are also willing to go out and ride through the area
that will be impacted to see and discuss what could be done to resolve any
potential conflicts.

“We will be doing a field session in the LBSNA area with various stakeholder
groups to help resolve the conceptual alignments that we have presented in
public meetings.They were presented as
conceptual so that we could engage the public and, in particular, user groups
in the design process.We will outline
our reasoning for the approach we have taken, and get input on the actual field
alignment that would be acceptable to the user groups,” Hays said.

“We will always have persons who are concerned about changing the existing
environment, but we welcome their input and will work to resolve the best routing
and opportunities for the greater community,” Hays added.

Bob Wenner agreed
with Hays and echoed the Wolf River Conservancy’s interest in addressing any
concerns or reservations by all those who may be impacted by the proposed
rerouting of the greenway trail.

Andy Hays is the Memphis Design Associate for Alta Planning + Design and
he brings a local perspective, with a considerable amount of experience, to
the Wolf River Greenway project.

Wenner is the Wolf River Conservancy’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who has
also overseen the conservancy’s land conservation projects, which has included
land acquisition/disposition, and conservation easements.

“We have received a lot of input from the users of the mountain bike trails and
they have suggested that we consider some alternate routing, which we intend to
look at.The exact routing is yet to be
determined,” Wenner said.

As it exists today, the newly proposed route for the greenway trail would
intersect with the Bandit trail in three spots and would intersect and merge
with a part of the blue trail in the Lucius Burch area before connecting with
the Shelby Farms Greenline trail.

The proposed material for the boardwalk portions of the greenway trail, Flink
said, is a concrete system known as PermaTrak.The decision to go with this type of material
over other options is that it has the least amount of impact on any
environmentally-sensitive landscape and it helps in reducing any potential detrimental
impact that other materials might have on surface level tree roots.

In addition to this, the concrete material is also slip resistant, it is easier
to keep clean, it lasts longer than wood and is not susceptible to termites,
and it is durable enough to allow construction and maintenance equipment to
work on others parts of the boardwalk from any existing portion of the
boardwalk itself.

The bridge over the Wolf River near Humphreys Blvd., and south of Shelby
Farms Park, currently provides the only means for cyclists and pedestrians
to access both locations via the existing trail system.

“PermaTrak is a very durable, long-lasting and easy to install product.It can be installed from the boardwalk itself
so there is minimal disturbance to the surrounding environment and it will
require less maintenance,” Hays said.

Even though it will be necessary to have some railings on some of the
boardwalks for the greenway trail, these will be held to a minimum, according
to Flink.

Whatever is installed will be the least visually intrusive as possible and the
railing design will be determined by how high the trail is from the ground,
Flink said.

The greenway trail, itself, will be completed in multiple stages according to
Flink and, in some cases, some portions may not be immediately connected to
anything else.

Alta Planning + Design will also be under an aggressive timeline in order to
finish the project by 2019, Flink said, and that it will probably seem like it
is controlled chaos to outsiders looking in.

“We are very excited to have most of the phases of design at or near 100
percent completion,” Hays said.

“We anticipate getting three to four phases under construction in the coming
months.Once this starts, we know the
public will be very excited about this project,” he added.

For those who are interested in following the progress of the project, the Wolf
River Conservancy will upload information on to the webpage and will publish a
schedule for completion of each phase at:http://www.wolfriver.org/the-wolf-river-greenway.

Alta Planning + Design engineers are looking to install
a concrete boardwalk, known as PermaTrak, at
various locations on the expanded Wolf River
Greenway trail, which is more durable and more
slip-resistant than wooden boardwalks are.

Aside from determining the route that the trail will take through the Lucius Burch
area, there are other issues that will also need to be addressed, which most
notably, includes an invasion of Chinese Privet.This invasive
species of plant dominates areas where it is not controlled and the ecological
system at Lucius Burch is suffering because of it, Flink said.

The Lucius Burch area and, the rest of the Wolf River Greenway, will have
signage, some of which will be informational and educational in nature with
others that will indicate direction and safety-related information such as
right-of-way and upcoming trail crossings.

“The Wolf River Greenway will be the major east-west greenway trail across
Shelby County.It will provide a safe
connection from downtown, North Memphis, Raleigh, Frayser, East Memphis and
connecting it with Germantown and Collierville.I think that the ability to connect neighborhoods together around a
landscape along the Wolf River will become something special for Memphis and
Shelby County,” Wenner said.

There are a lot of great things to love and appreciate in Memphis and Shelby
County and one day, in the not-so-distance future, that will also have to
include the Wolf River Greenway.

1 comment:

This is wonderful news and will be a tremendous boost for the area. 2019 is not that far away and I hope the project stays on track. a 36 mile trail as described would be a very enjoyable ride. Thank you Wolf River Greenway !!

About Me

I am a long-time resident of Memphis, Tennessee. I had a long active duty military career and I am now a student at the University of Memphis. I am married to a native Memphian who is a retired Memphis City School teacher. When I am not busy, or in school, you will likely find me out riding my bike or jogging around my East Memphis neighborhood. If you would like to learn more of my passion for cycling, you can follow me on twitter at - https://twitter.com/memphiscyclist, or you can check out my cycling website - http://memphiscyclist.com. If you have any questions or comments about my blogs, my website or about Memphis cycling, please feel free to contact me at mikel5061@yahoo.com.